Ming Rod

NLC ring mod

This module was developed from a paper by Tom Oberheim, presented at the Audio Engineering Society 1970 convention – A “Ring Modulator” Device for the Performing Musician.

The paper discusses the various types of ring modulators and states the transformers in the well-known diode ring modulator can be replaced with transistors. From pg.2 – The transistors serve as phase inverters for driving opposite sides of the ring. The differential amplifier amplifies the sum and difference frequencies while rejecting the signal and the carrier.

Well, this is exciting! Why hasn’t anybody ever made one? Why didn’t Mr Oberheim make one? Maybe because it is somewhat hard to dial in the pots and it gives pretty unexpected waveforms on the output or dedicated ICs became cheaper and did a better job. So, yeh it isn’t the cleanest ring mod ever but flaws equal character and for a synth module, this is where the fun is, it sounds wonderful. What other Ring Mod has pots for adjusting the phase difference?

The upper two pots are input attenuators, the lower two are supposed to set it up for removing the input signal and the carrier from the output, good luck with that, just tweak it until it sounds good.

https://www.nonlinearcircuits.com/modules/p/mingrod